Review of Pandemic by Yvonne Ventresca

Format: eBook
Genres: apocalyptic, survival,
Pages: 352
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Release Date: 06/05/2014
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Even under the most normal circumstances, high school can be a painful and confusing time. Unfortunately, Lilianna's circumstances are anything but normal. Only a few people know what caused her sudden change from model student to the withdrawn pessimist she has become, but her situation isn't about to get any better. When people begin coming down with a quick-spreading illness that doctors are unable to treat, Lil's worst fears are realized. With her parents called away on business before the contagious outbreak-her father in Delaware covering the early stages of the disease and her mother in Hong Kong and unable to get a flight back to New Jersey-Lil's town is hit by what soon becomes a widespread illness and fatal disaster. Now, she's more alone than she's been since the "incident" at her school months ago.

With friends and neighbors dying all around her, Lil does everything she can just to survive. But as the disease rages on, so does an unexpected tension as Lil is torn between an old ex and a new romantic interest. Just when it all seems too much, the cause of her original trauma shows up at her door. In this thrilling debut from author Yvonne Ventresca, Lil must find a way to survive not only the outbreak and its real-life consequences, but also her own personal demons.

 
Lil is someone I was classify as a 'difficult' character - she's completely torn up about something that happened to her and suffers with anxiety because of it, dealing with the stress by stockpiling food and saving alerts on her phone for various diseases. But nothing can prepare her for when the worst does actually happen and she's left at home alone to fend for herself while everyone around her is dying from the epidemic.

The pacing was done very well,everything is set up before getting to the main event but the author easily managed to keep me reading without getting bored, in fact I felt morbidly excited for when all of the epidemic stuff would start to happen. Being set just in a few streets at most, we don't have a huge cast of characters to keep up with which made it easier to connect with them and care about them.

The ante was upped towards the end and I was frantically flipping electronic pages to find out what would happen next and if my favourite characters would survive this epidemic that had ravaged most of the rest of the world. Lil finally told her secrets to the boy she fell in love with and I was left with a satisfying ending, no read-the-next-book cliffhanger, which I was very pleased with.

While I enjoyed this book immensely for the most part, sadly it's not a very memorable read for me. Part of this may be because I read this just after In The After, which I thought was incredible and the world was so much bigger. This is much simpler, set just in a few American streets. However, for readers who find want a taste of apocalyptic but find most too confusing, this simpler story would be perfect.